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On Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:26:01 EST, David Wood wrote:
> >I wonder why these books got published in the first place...
> >Were publishers just trying to get a jump start on the market,
> >and it turned out to be a bad decision?
> >Bev, you're a genius. :-) Why do you think there were "How To
> >Get the Most Out Of Windows 95" books on the shelves last JULY?
> >;-)
> This begs a question I have frequently asked - Why is it that
> Microsoft gives us inadequate manuals (if any) with their
> products, but there are plenty of "Getting the Most Out of ..."
> titles available from (you guessed it) Microsoft Press.
The same reason you don't see a lot of "bugfix" packages from Microsoft
either. It's more cost effective to hold on to them for a year or so,
then release them as a "new version".
Example: people point to the fact that IBM's OS/2 Warp "corrective
service" fixpacks are now up to #20 and say, "Look, it must be RIDDLED
with bugs!". Well, besides the fact that most of those are *private*
releases for specific people with specific problems (only #5, #10, and
#16/17 were public releases), they also come out on a regular basis,
and are FREE... and some include some MAJOR improvements/upgrades, not
just bugfixes (#16 included a patch for the long-standing synchronous
input queue lockup problem).
On the other hand, you could be like one acquaintance of mine who
bought the MS-DOS v6.2 "upgrade edition" that will only install over
v6.0.
Your friend and mine,
Matt
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